Human trafficking is bad. Really bad. Human trafficking is modern-day slavery. We know this yet but manage to underestimate its reach.
In spite of our visceral reaction to stories of enslavement, seldom do we think about how slave labor intersects with the fruit we buy, neglected children living next door, or smut we secretly consume.
Why Is This a Problem?
Human trafficking is not only a problem that is afflicting other nations. It is not knocking at America’s front door. It is happening within our borders to Americans. The U.S. Department of Justice report earlier this year revealed that 83% of victims in confirmed sex trafficking incidents are actually U.S. citizens.
Harvard professor E. Benjamin Skinner describes trafficked persons as “those who are forced to work, held through fraud, under threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence.” Is there a worse fate?
Whether at home or abroad, human trafficking grossly encroaches on fundamental rights of an individual. Traffickers, who are experts at preying on the vulnerable, exact physical violence and emotional abuse to goad victims into compliance. At a macro level, human trafficking disembowels families, diminishes the sovereignty of the state, and feeds corruption.
As demand increasingly shifts to the Internet and social networking sites, Johns, traffickers, and victims are becoming less distinct. The anonymity has made it more difficult to track prostituted persons.
Why don’t police troll known websites and investigate every case? Bradley Miles, co-founder of the Polaris Project, pointed to a simple problem: volume. Understaffed police departments are unable to tackle so vast an arena. On a given day, one hundred adds can appear on a website, an amount that would inundate America’s largest precincts much less a neglected vice division.
The Coalition Against Trafficking of Women (CATW) has taken aim at the increased solicitation of prostitution through websites. After Craigslist.com closed its Adult Services section last December, traffic moved to similar websites like Backpage.com. “Backpage is now the leading online facilitator of sex trafficking,” said Norma Ramos of CATW. The website, a CATW statement revealed, derives most of its $2 million monthly revenues by “function[ing] as a virtual red light district.”
On November 16, over 110 organizations demonstrated outside of the Village Voices – owner of Backpage.com- to protest the company’s detached response to the commercial sexual exploitation of minors through their website.
What You Can Do!
The Old Testament’s Gideon faced a similar quandary. The Midianites and Amalekites already outnumbered his fledgling army of 33,000 soldiers, yet God whittled his forces down to a cadre of 300. The prophet triumphed over unlikely odds. Despite the enormous size of the commercial sex industry and demand for forced labor, it only takes a committed group of people who are willing to pray and act to topple the troubling status quo.
As Christians, it is not incumbent upon us to create heaven on earth – only God can do that. By neither are we to be passive observers of evil in our world. Our call is to seek and to save lost persons in our spheres of influence. Here is what you can do:
- Host a Christmas tea as an anti-trafficking fundraiser.
- Organize a movie screening about human trafficking.
- Partner with local churches to donate to an anti-trafficking organization.
- Educate your social circle about human trafficking. Here are a few facts.
- Start a prayer group.
Hosea admonishes against inattention: “My people perish from a lack of knowledge.” It is unlikely that knowing less about human trafficking will not result in your untimely passing. It is likely, however, that it could prevent you from identifying a trafficked person or recognizing the connection between your chocolate purchases and slave labor in Ghana. Small actions in concert inadvertently prop up the unscrupulous individuals who trample upon the self-evident freedoms nation and our faith are founded.
Kim Meeder, a Christian author and domestic violence survivor, once said: “It’s easier for God to take willing heart and make it able than to take an able heart and make it willing.” As 2011 closes, open your heart to what God would have you do about human trafficking. It does not take much and there is someone out there has been waiting for you to make up your mind.
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